


i wish i was going with you (or you were staying here)

by naasad



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Unrequited Love, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 14:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15775848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naasad/pseuds/naasad
Summary: After the barricades, Grantaire wakes up.





	i wish i was going with you (or you were staying here)

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to [What is Harmless but Can Kill You?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15604020) but you don't need to read that first.
> 
> Apologies for half-assed history references to Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

_“You are incapable of believing, of willing, of thinking, of living, of dying!”_

_“Do you permit it?”_

Grantaire woke in the back of a cart, piled in with the rest of his friends’ bodies. He sobbed and twisted out and away, falling on the hard cobblestone. He felt his chest for bullet holes, for even scars, and found nothing, just like all the other times.

Oh, Enjolras, how right you were.

Out. Unless he wanted to relive his days as a Roman gladiator, dying over and over and over, he needed to get out of the city right now – go somewhere he wouldn’t be recognized. He ran, barefoot, through the dark streets. He made quite the image, he was sure, in his shirt, trousers, and braces, screaming and sobbing, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him.

He fell only once, outside an old church, pitched forward and smacked his chin on the dirt. He laid there, trembling and sobbing, until a priest found him. “Come,” he said, helping him up. “I will hide you until nightfall.”

Grantaire sobbed in relief. “And what do you ask in return, Mon Père?”

The priest said nothing, simply hid him in the cemetery’s toolshed and returned with bread and wine. Once his charge had eaten, he asked: “How did you escape death?”

Grantaire laughed and laughed and laughed, as if he were possessed, and the priest let him be.

Then he sobbed and rolled over, mourning his friends. What little sleep he had was interrupted by the memory of his death – and worse, of Enjolras’. He had loved him, he realized. What would the priest say if he knew he housed an _erast_ _ês_? Grantaire closed his eyes against the memory that sprang up unbidden – him, known then as Agathon, and his dear, sweet Evaristus.

He hadn’t been able to protect his _er_ _ômenos_ then, what had ever made him believe he could’ve protected Enjolras now? Or even that he wouldn’t turn out to be just as immune to bullets as to swords?

He did not sleep. Instead, he wept.

In the evening, he was given shoes and a waistcoat, and a small purse of money. “Use it wisely,” the priest said, “and it will multiply.”

Grantaire snorted and left the city, making for the west. Spain had been kind to him before, he hoped it would be again.

They had excellent wine, and he would need it – to forget.


End file.
